Easter 5 2024

Let's pray together.

Almighty God, do you all desire?

From you.

Perfectly love you.

And worthy that by your holy name.

Fruit of us.

Now, as you know, we sometimes share bulletins, and we did do a baptism at 8 this morning because that was better for the kids.

So we will not be doing it at 10.30.

So we will skip down.

The Lord be with you.

Let us pray.

O God, you've prepared for those who love you such good things as surpass our understanding.

Pour into our heart such love towards you that we, loving you in all things and above all things, may obtain your promises which exceed all that we can desire.

Through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you in the Holy Spirit, one God, forever and ever.

Amen.

As you're being seated, our children are invited to children's chapel.

Now Saul approved of the mob killing Stephen, and there began that day a great persecution in the church in Jerusalem.

Now when everyone was scattered throughout the countryside of Judea and Samaria except the apostles, devout men buried Stephen and made loud lamentation over him.

And Saul was ravaging the church one house at a time, dragging off both women and men, and he handed them over to prison.

Now the women and men who were scattered traveled proclaiming the word.

Philip went down to a Sumerian city and preached the Messiah to them.

The crowds of women and men listened eagerly with one accord to what was said by Philip, with hearing and seeing the signs that he did.

For many had unclean spirits crying out with loud voices.

They came out of many, and many others who were paralyzed or lame were cured.

So there was great joy in that city.

Now there was a man named Simon who had previously practiced magic in the city, and amazed the people of Samaria, and he said that he was someone great.

They all paid attention to him, from the least to the greatest, saying, This man is the one known as the great power of God.

Now they paid attention to him because for a long time he had amazed them with his magic.

But when they believed Philip, who was proclaiming the good news about the realm of God and the name of Jesus Christ, they were baptized, both women and men, at the word of the Lord.

Psalm seventy-one, we will read responsibly by the half verse.

God, you have taught me from my mouth.

And yes, even to old age and gray hair.

You who have let me see many troubles and adversities will restore me, bringing me to life.

You will magnify my greatness.

I, even I, will praise you with the heart for your faithfulness, my God.

My lips will shout for joy as I sing praise to you.

Now then, if you confess with your lips that Jesus is sovereign, and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.

For with the heart one believes, leading to righteousness, and with the mouth one confesses, leading to salvation.

The scripture says, No one who believes in that one will be put to shame.

For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek.

The same sovereign is sovereign of all, and is richly generous to all who call on the sovereign.

For everyone who calls on the name of the sovereign shall be saved.

How then are they to call on one in whom they have not believed?

And how are they to believe in one of whom they have never heard?

And how are they to hear without one who preaches?

And how are they to preach without being sent?

As it is written, How beautiful are the feet of those who proclaim the good news, the word of the Lord.

Thanks be to God.

Jesus said to the Samaritan woman at the well, God is spirit.

Those who worship God must worship in spirit and truth.

The woman said to Jesus, I know the Messiah is coming, the one who's called Christ.

When he comes, he'll proclaim all things to us.

Jesus said to her, I am the one who is speaking to you.

Just then his disciples came and were astonished that he was speaking with a woman.

But no one said, What do you want?

or why are you speaking with her?

Then the woman left her water jar and went back to the city and said to the people, Come and see a man who told me all I have ever done.

Is this not the Messiah?

The gospel of the Lord.

Praise to you, Lord Christ.

Christ is risen.

The Lord is risen in thee.

Please be seated.

So there's some interesting words from the epistle today.

If you confess with your lips Jesus is sovereign and believe in your heart God raised him from the dead, you'll be saved.

And having grown up evangelical, we were really clear that God was going to save you from eternal punishment in hell if you said the right thing and believed the right thing.

I don't know what your church background is.

I don't know if that was your standard interpretation, but I do want to suggest to you, and I can't really condense a 500-page book swiftly here, but uh N.

T.

Wright has written a book called Paul.

And what N.

T.

Wright points out is that this idea of being saved from eternal punishment showed up in the late Middle Ages, not in the earliest Christian community at all.

So that our concern with hell, I don't want to say it's misplaced, I'm just going to say it wasn't original.

What kind of salvation was Paul interested in?

Well, if you just keep reading, it'll tell you.

No distinction between Jew and Greek.

No distinction between Jew or Greek.

What's interesting, thinking through my own experience, is that we have actually leveraged the scriptures to do precisely the opposite.

We have used litmus tests and doctrines to create distinctions between good Christians and bad ones, between Christians and Jews or Christians and Muslims.

We have taken Christian doctrine in order to separate ourselves from other people.

It begins with Paul's own seal.

And we usually think seal means you feel something strongly, but in the Bible, seal means you feel something so strongly that you are willing to take violence into your own hands.

So look what Paul's zeal did.

It killed Stephen.

It put people in jail.

That's Paul's zeal.

Later he's going to repent from that.

We know that.

In the middle of these very trying times, Philip does a really interesting thing.

He knows perhaps he's risking his own life and he goes to Samaria.

And we don't often recognize the significance.

Samaria abuts Israel.

It's modern-day Lebanon and Syria.

Which actually is a pretty good parallel.

The way the modern Israeli feels about the Lebanese and the Syrian is about how the ancient Jew felt about the Samaritan.

They're terrorists, they're wrong.

They're weird.

Philip goes there on purpose.

He goes on purpose to a place where people are unclean and backward and don't believe the right things because he takes the gospel seriously.

There is no distinction between Samaritans and Jews.

He goes, and while he's there, he encounters a rather interesting incident.

He meets a guy called Simon Magus.

Simon the sorcerer, Simon the magician, who in the Middle Ages, turns out, becomes sort of the archetype for heresy.

You can often see him in cathedrals, like Gothic cathedrals, flying above the apostles and like shooting tornadoes at them.

And I hope you notice the scriptures don't deny he has magic powers.

They say he can do it.

And the people are afraid of him.

He has magic power.

And notice that he wants people to call him the great power of God.

And they fear him because he can do amazing things with his magic.

But when Philip comes, he proclaims good news, and they find his message, well, better.

And what's different, I put to you, might be that Simon's power comes from being above and special and different from other people.

And the power of the gospel comes from being in solidarity with one another.

You are going to hear this political season, I guarantee you, people who will leverage their politics and say that they are the great power of God.

And I want you to hear that's arch heresy.

When we co-opt our faith into politics, that is Simon Magus operating magic, which will destroy our faith and destroy our world.

You will probably hear somebody say, I'm the great power of God, this electoral season.

So pay attention this political season to who talks about actually serving instead of ordering other people what to do.

Pay attention in your normal life when you find yourself thinking somebody else exists to take care of this for me.

Because that leads us into archeresy.

Flying around with magic spells that destroy the dignity of other children of God.

Jesus goes, you know, just like Philip, he goes to Samaria.

And he meets a woman at the well.

And you notice the disciples are amazed that he's talking to a woman.

I don't know if you know this.

She's actually got three strikes.

It's bad enough she's a woman.

She's also a Samaritan.

And do you remember her other distinguishing mark?

She's not a widow.

Well, she could be a widow.

We don't know.

We know that she's not living with her husband.

She's had many husbands, and the man she's living with is not her husband.

Right?

So it weren't bad enough that she's a woman.

She's a Samaritan woman, and she's a keeper of many men.

She's a jigolo.

I mean, I don't really know what else to say.

So, one, two, three strikes.

And let me have an interesting conversation.

I mean, I could tell you, having read the whole conversation, I'm not sure they actually listened to each other very well.

But I hope you notice an interesting thing that she says.

The only thing Jesus tells her that she's done is that she's had many husbands and is living with a guy who's not a husband.

He didn't literally tell her everything she's ever done.

He told her that.

I know where you're from, I know how you're living.

The thing he didn't say is, You're going to hell when you die, so you better accept me as your Lord and Savior.

Did you notice that?

He didn't say that.

And this might actually be a salvation moment for this woman who's got three strikes.

Is that Jesus kept talking with her?

Sometimes we think that the opposite of love is hate.

Although Ellie Biesel, Holocaust survivor, author of Night, which many of you have read, says the opposite of love is not hate, but is indifference.

Jesus is not indifferent to this woman with three strikes.

And the way he shows his love is by staying.

And by talking.

And by listening.

Not necessarily by agreeing.

Not converting her to Christianity, which doesn't exist, right?

Christianity doesn't exist when Jesus is around.

He's not there to convert her.

There's a salvation moment for her in that a Jewish man who often would think himself above her has chosen to sit and listen.

Now, look, maybe salvation happens after you're dead too, but I just want to point out that all of the scriptures are concerned not just with how we die, it's frankly how we choose to live.

And there is something really quite lovely about this idea that as much as Wes is a temple for the Holy Spirit, and Kathy is a temple for the Holy Spirit, what Paul writes is not you individually, but y'all are a temple for the Holy Spirit.

Or in really in better Texan, all y'all are a temple for the Holy Spirit.

And so there's this interesting move of.

We often make that say you don't belong in God's temple, when in fact the scriptures say we do.

We do.

Gosh, even the people who give us harper belong in God's temple.

Now, I already did this baptism, but it's an interesting thing to think about how this ties into baptism because the scriptures mention it, right?

And baptism does a couple of things for us, right?

It offers to us a, it's a washing away of whatever it is that is weighing you down, and it's also sort of a new birth opportunity.

And boy, you know, thinking about how I often like to frame the word, and I really am saying this, how I like to frame the world.

I like to think about people who are right, which are people who think like me, and then all of the other people.

And this is part of why we have the sacrament of baptism, because that kind of thinking leads to damnation on earth.

Paul says salvation is if there is no distinction.

No distinction between Jew or Greek or Samaritan and Jew.

Or between Tea Party and Yellow Dog Democrat, there's no distinction.

And I'll tell you, you've heard me say this before, I think part of the reason we do baptism with infants is if you can't see that in an infant, I mean, you're a sociopath.

Like we have evolved as mammals that when we see young things, whether they're puppies or children, like take good care of young things.

So we get to see a little pearl in God's oyster, and we say, ah, young thing, child of God.

It gets harder when they're like, you know, 45 and they're in the cubicle next door to us and like they stink.

Which is this great opportunity to say, you once were a young thing.

You once were a young thing.

And I'm going to imagine you, co-worker that drives me nuts, as God's little baby, because who doesn't have compassion on a baby?

Sociopaths.

So there is this chance we have when somebody's driving us nuts, to imagine this beloved child of God.

And of course, this little girl I baptized this morning that's a year old.

Does she need the lens through which she sees the world washed off?

Probably not.

We're the ones who need it.

We're the ones who need it.

Which is why we do this publicly.

Which is why we renew our vows every time we do it.

To be honest, it's more for us than it is for the kid.

And not just this one time.

You know, the church I grew up then said, well, kids are all fine, but when you reach the age of accountability and you start intentionally sinning, well, there goes all your spirituality and your goodness.

And I get that idea.

It's just not biblical.

It's not biblical.

So why we do that to each other in God's name?

Well, that puts us in the same campus the Romans, and Paul's saying, quit it.

Quit it.

Be saved from your self-righteousness.

Be saved from the idea that some of us are in and some of us are out.

Be saved from that.

Be saved from having to be the great power of God.

The great power of God is not because other people think you're important.

It's because we empower one another.

And I mean that.

We empower one another to bring more folks in, the ones we couldn't bring in on our own.

Babies are easy to bring in.

Because if you don't, you're a sociopath.

But you know, other people are harder to bring in.

It can be really hard to bring in, well, I don't know, a Missouri-sinned Lutheran.

That could be hard for folks in the room, which is why we have each other.

You don't have to do it on your own.

It could be really hard to bring in, well, I don't know, a Muslim or, you know, maybe a conservative Jewish person.

And it is also the gospel that we do that.

Because of y'all are the temple for the Holy Spirit.

Sometimes I might help you.

And thanks be to God, you often help me to empower me to be welcoming, to say we're in this together.

We don't need to keep making distinctions.

It's hard work, which is why I think Jesus says, we'll worship God in spirit and in truth.

And that word spirit doesn't mean like a ghost flying around.

In Greek, that's the word puma, and it means moving air.

Like we will worship God with the way we breathe.

Maybe you breathe different air at your home, but right now we are all breathing the same air, aren't we?

Because all y'all are a temple for the Holy Spirit.

All y'all are a temple for the Holy Spirit.

And that truth is as basic in.

So I think this Easter season, we're invited not just to see the risen Christ, well, in church, or frankly, in the Christian, or in the Christian of our own denomination.

We're invited to breathe in the risen Christ and the people that drive us nuts.

Because the gospel of Jesus Christ invites us to eliminate the distinctions we so hurriedly like to throw up.

Now we're not doing the Apostles' Creed today, because we did the baptism already.

So if you join me in your red prayer book on page 358, 358, we will pray our faith in the words of the Nicene Creed.

We believe in one God, the Father, the Almighty, maker of the earth.

We're all charged.

We have two back to the death.

We look for the first time.

For our bishops, priests, and deacons.

Pray for those who carry out your mission under their leadership.

Pray for God's church.

We offer our prayers for the leaders of our nation, for our president, our governor, Congress, and the courts of this land.

Give them courage and wisdom and a heart for justice.

Pray for justice and peace.

We pray for mercy for those who suffer from hunger, in poverty, in the wake of violent storms and after earthquakes.

Sustain them in their struggles and give them hope.

We are thankful for compassionate people who answer their call for help.

Pray for those who suffer around the world.

We pray for those who are ill, for those who live in fear, and whose spirits are restless.

Give comfort for those who are dying and those who stand beside them as they find their way home.

Pray for new and unending life in this world and the next.

We pray for those who have died, especially Nora Lee.

Our hearts are full this day, Lord, as we embrace new life in you.

We give you thanks for the gift of song and joyful spirits.

Amen.

I invite you if you still have your red prayer book, to join me on page 360 for the confession, page 360.

Let us confess our sin against God and our neighbor.

Most merciful God, we confess that we have sinned against you.

We have not loved you with our whole heart.

We have not loved our neighbors as ourselves.

We are duly sorry, and we must repent.

For the sake of your Son Jesus Christ, have mercy on us and forgive us.

That we may divide your will and walk in your ways to the glory of your name.

Amen.

Almighty God, have mercy upon you.

Forgive you all your sins, to our Lord Jesus Christ, strengthen you in all goodness, and by the power of the Holy Spirit keep you in everlasting life.

Amen.

God does not make any distinction between sinners and saints.

If you're new to us or haven't done this before, we have these little cards in the room right behind the one you're sitting in.

It's called the NARFix.

These little cards that say welcome.

And we'd be tremendously grateful if you fill one out and put it in the little blue basket so we have a record of your visit.

If you don't want to call, don't check that box.

But we would love to have a record of your visit.

And thanks for worshiping with us today.

You'll also notice out where you picked up the bulletins on those little black tables.

We sort of have the announcements for the month.

There's several I want to call to your attention while we're together and a few new ones as well.

So if you get the e-news, maybe you've seen this already, but we have had somebody give us two round trim airplane tickets anywhere Southwest flies that includes Hawaii and Costa Rica.

They've given that to us.

There's no blackout dates, so there's two of them.

And they wanted to use this gift to raise money for our pipe working.

So out there, there's a little uh little basket and a bid sheet, and the way they want this to work is you just put your name and how much you're willing to bid, and the highest bidder wins the two tickets.

Uh, you have to book them in the next three months, but you can travel anytime in the next year.

Again, there's no blackout dates, so you can go on Thanksgiving Day if you want to.

Um so it's a lovely gift, and uh you're going to hear some more about our organ.

Our next phase of the PIP program will be building the chambers, and we're uh getting ready to uh commence with beating that out.

So uh a huge gift for your general thank you for your generosity.

Uh coming up.

This coming Saturday, we have a fresh food distribution uh with the Galveston County Food Bank.

So we'll start at 7.30 in the morning, right out in the parking lot.

You don't have to RCP, you can just show up.

We're usually done about 9.30, having fed about 500 people.

Uh next Sunday, we've got two things a week from today, May 5th.

The first is if you'd like to hear what a pilgrimage is, it's a kind of tourism that's different from your standard kind.

Um, I'll talk about pilgrimage in general and the pilgrimage to Greece, particularly if you're having trouble sleeping.

I recommend this for you because looking at other people's pictures will put you right out.

So it'll be between uh services in Christ Hall.

I'll be happy to talk to you about taking 12 clergy, including one bishop, on a 11-day pilgrimage to Greece in the footsteps of Paul.

Uh, next Sunday is also our newcomer's lunch.

So immediately following the 10:30 service, we have a small luncheon as an opportunity to get to know other people in the parish, to hear more about ministry at St.

Thomas, and to hear if you're interested what membership is like.

It's possible you haven't been to one of these before, you're invited.

It's possible you've been to one before, you're invited.

There's a sign-up right outside of Christ Hall so we can have enough food.

And again, uh, anybody who wants to come, we'd love to have you.

Uh would also like for you to, looking ahead a little bit, Pentecost this year is on May 19th.

And on Pentecost, we have a really special thing between both services.

Every year, the Ideterod Trail, you know, the dog sled race in Alaska that goes out to Nome, picks one teacher in the United States to be the Ideterod teacher on the trail.

So one of our members who's on our vestry, Kate New Meyer, was chosen.

She has already done this this year, and she is going to talk about being teacher on the trail May 19th between services.

So I just wanted to prepare you because uh there's only one every year and she's ours.

Uh, two other announcements.

Uh, Alex is taking orders for a St.

Thomas Parish t-shirt.

It's lovely, it's light blue, it has our logo, it says we can do more together, and uh Alex is completing the orders.

So you can either talk to Alex or there's a link in the e-news to click I'd like a shirt and we'll get them ordered, and they should be here in maybe two weeks or something like that.

Uh last one I want to put before you uh is that uh you probably know that we are pretty uh involved with Lord of the Streets downtown, which is a ministry for current and formerly homeless uh men, women, and children.

Uh we're so involved that we've planned the last five spring luncheons, which is their major fundraiser for the year.

This year we took the year off, however, we're still going.

So the spring luncheon for Lord of the Streets is May the 15th.

It's at the Junior League in Houston, and uh it's just a great opportunity to support an organization that does phenomenal work.

Not only do they give social services and uh relief supplies, but of course, they're also a worshiping community.

And uh having a community when you're homeless or yardless makes a huge difference in these families, in these men and these women.

Uh so we are very proud to support Lord of the Streets, and I just want to give you an opportunity to see that we're having this luncheon.

If you're interested in going, um, of course, you can buy your own seat, but you can also talk to Kathy Hill or to myself.

We we both have a couple of seats left at our tables.

Uh so that's May 15th at the Junior League.

It lasts an hour and a half, and uh, this is the first time I think that the bishop has been the speaker for it.

Um so it'll be a really special opportunity.

Walk in love.

As Christ first loved us and gave himself for us, an offering and sacrifice to God.

This is a table not of the church, but of Jesus Christ.

It is made ready for those who love him and those who want to love him more, so come, you who have much faith and you who have little.

You who have been here often, and you who have not been for a long time or ever before.

You who have tried to follow, and you who have failed, come.

Not because the church invites you, but it is Christ, and he invites you to meet him here.

Our service continues on page three hundred and seventy-two of your red prayer book.

Page three hundred and seventy-two.

It is truly right to glorify you, Father, and to give you thanks, for you alone our God.

Living and truth, dwelling in life and excessive from before time forever, fountain of life and source of all goodness, made all things and filled them with you, you created them to rejoice in the splendor of your radiance.

Countless strong angels standing before you serve you through night and day, and beholding the glory of your presence, they offer you unceasing grace, joining with them and giving voice to every creature under heaven.

We are clear and glorify your name as we sing.

You formed us from your own image, giving the whole world into our stewardship, so that in obedience to you, our Creator, we might shepherd and serve all your creatures.

When our disobedience takes us far from you, do not abandon us to the power of death.

In your mercy you come to our help so that in seeking you we might find you.

Again and again you call us into covenant with you, and through the prophets you teach us to hope for salvation.

Father, you love the world so much that in the fullness of time you sent your only Son to be our Savior.

Incarnate by the Holy Spirit and by the Virgin Mary, he lived as one of us, yet without sin.

To the poor he proclaimed the good news of salvation, to the prisoners' freedom, to the sorrowful joy.

To fulfill your purpose, he gave himself up to death, and rising from the grave destroyed death and made the whole creation new.

And that we might live no longer for ourselves, but for the one who died and rose for us.

God sent the Holy Spirit, God's own first gift for those who believe, to complete Jesus' work in the world, and bring to fulfillment the sanctification of all.

When the hour had come for him to be glorified by you, his heavenly Father, having loved his own who were in the world, Jesus loved them to the end.

At supper with them, he took bread.

And when he given thanks to you, he broke it, and gave it to his disciples, and said, Take, eat.

This is my body which is given for you.

Do this for the remembrance of me.

After supper, Jesus took the cup of wine, and when he given thanks, he gave it to them and said, Drink this all of you.

This is my blood of the renewed covenant which is shed for you and for all, for the forgiveness of sin.

Whenever you drink it, do this for the remembrance of me.

Father, we now celebrate this memorial of our redemption, recalling Christ's death and his descent among the dead, proclaiming his resurrection and ascension to your right hand, awaiting his coming in glory and offering to you for the gifts you've given us, this bread and this cup, we praise you and we bless you.

We praise you, we bless you, we give thanks to you, and we pray to you, Lord our God.

Lord, we pray that in your goodness and mercy your Holy Spirit may descend upon us, and upon these gifts, sanctifying them and showing them to be holy gifts for your holy people, the bread of life and the cup of salvation, the body and blood of your Son Jesus Christ.

Grant that all who share this bread and cup may become one body and one spirit, a living sacrifice in Christ to the praise of your name.

Remember, Lord, your one holy Catholic and apostolic church, redeemed by the love of your Christ.

Reveal its unity, guard its faith, and preserve it in peace.

Remember all your people and those who seek your truth.

The congregation is invited to name their own celebrations or petitions, silently or allowed.

Grant that we may find our inheritance with the Blessed Virgin Mary, with the patriarchs, patriarchs, Samaritans, Jews, Greeks, prophets, apostles, and martyrs, all the saints who have found favor with you in ages past.

Praise you in union with them.

Give you glory through your Son Jesus Christ our Lord.

Through Christ and with Christ and in Christ, all honor and glory are yours, Almighty God and Father, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, for ever and ever.

Amen.

And now, as our Savior Christ has taught us, we are bold to pray.

Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will come on earth as it is in heaven.

Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our assesses, as we forgive those who trespass against us, and be the side of the temptation, but deliver us to the people, who dies the kingdom, and the power and the glory forever and ever.

Amen.

Hallelujah.

Christ, our Passover is sacrificed for us.

Therefore, let us keep the feast.

These are the gifts of God for you, the people of God.

And with thanksgiving.

May we follow you out in the world, ambassadors of your home peace.

Amen.

May you be a new creation, Christ for those to whom Christ shall send you.

The blessing of God Almighty, the Father, the risen Son, and the Holy Spirit raise new life in you this day and remain with you always.

Amen.